Wagering games based on the outcome of randomly generated or selected symbols are well known. Such games include card games wherein the symbols may be the usual, widely recognized playing cards. Card games such as black jack, Pai Gow poker, Caribbean Stud.TM. poker and others are excellent card games for use in gambling casinos. Desirable attributes of casino games are that they are exciting, that they can be learned and understood easily by players, and that they move or can be played rapidly to their wager-resolving outcome.
The desired attributes of wagering games, particularly for those being used in casinos, have lead to the development of electromechanical or mechanical card shuffling devices. Such devices increase the speed of shuffling and dealing, thereby increasing playing time, adding to the excitement of the game while reducing the time required in preparing to play a game.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,513,969 (to Samsel, Jr.) and 4,515,367 (to Howard) disclose automatic card shufflers. The Samsel, Jr. patent discloses the use of microphotosensors to detect the presence or absence of a card or cards while shuffling is proceeding. For example, when a photosensor detects the absence of a card in a dispending compartment, a signal is transmitted to a timer circuit which then causes the energization of a solenoid to extract a card from a storage compartment. The Howard patent discloses the use of a lamp (or LED) that directs light toward a light sensitive element, whereby the light rays are blocked when a stack of cards reaches a particular height. The blockage or non-blockage of the light either energizes or turns off components of the machine to deliver cards from one portion of the machine to another. Neither of the Samsel, Jr. or Howard patents discloses apparatus for insuring a random cut of the cards in preparation for shuffling.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,712 (to Lorber, et al.) discloses an automatic shuffling apparatus directed toward reducing the dead time generated when a casino dealer manually has to shuffle multiple decks of playing cards. The borber, et al. apparatus has a container, a storage device for storing shuffled playing cards, a removing device and an inserting device for intermixing the playing cards in the container, a dealing shoe and supplying means for supplying the shuffled playing cards from the storage device to the dealing shoe. The apparatus is designed to intermix discarded playing cards into undealt decks under the programmed control of a computer, and includes a card jam light indicator for monitoring the passage, i.e., the presence or absence, of cards in various portions of the machine.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,884 (issued to John G. Breeding, the inventor of the present invention, and commonly owned) discloses an apparatus for automatically shuffling a deck of cards. The device includes a deck stacking zone, a carriage section for separating a deck into two portions, a sloped member positioned between adjacent corners of the separated deck, and an apparatus for snapping the cards over the sloped member thereby interleaving the cards. The sloped member is driven upwardly, raising or riffling the adjacent corners while simultaneously pushing one sub-deck toward the other thereby interleaving the cards. The interleaved sub-decks are then aligned and pushed together to provide a single randomly shuffled deck. The device is adapted to move repeatedly through this sequence. The Breeding patent is directed to providing a mechanized card shuffler whereby a deck may be shuffled often and yet the dealer still has adequate time to operate the game. Additionally, the Breeding shuffling device is directed to reducing the chance that cards become marked as they are shuffled and to keeping the cards in view constantly while they are being shuffled.
Although the Breeding card shuffling device provides a significant improvement in card shuffling devices, one unaddressed problem is that the device does not positively insure that the deck is cut at a random location. The device shown in the Breeding patent theoretically could cut the deck at the same location each time the deck is cut for shuffling. This fact, while not necessarily detrimental to a random shuffle, is undesirable in that it introduces a theoretical constant into the mechanical shuffling procedure that is not present with a manual shuffle. This lack of complete simulation of a manual shuffle, long accepted as a standard procedure by gaming commissions and casinos, makes a mechanical shuffling machine suspect as a substitute for manual shuffling and less desirable than a machine that insures a random cut.
Accordingly, there is a need for a simple, durable efficient means to positively insure that the cards are randomly cut in preparation for each shuffling of the cards.